Posted on by tonytomeo · 28 Comments

Six on Saturday: Brent’s Garden

 

Did you see my Six on Saturday posts last week, in which I explained the origin of these pictures, and why they are of such bad quality? To be brief, they were sent by Brent Green, my colleague since 1986, who is a renowned landscape designer in the Los Angeles region, and takes very bad pictures.

Well, these pictures are atypically not bad. They are of Brent’s home garden, which is crowded with way too many plants. There is more variety within this confined space than I could fit in several acres . . . or many acres. Some plants get trialed here before being used in some of the landscapes that Brent designs.

What you can not see in these pictures is that this garden is on a small city lot in Mid City Los Angeles, just about a block from the Santa Monica Freeway. What you can not hear, either here or there, is the noise of the freeway, which is mostly muffled by the high hedges and various small fountains strategically located throughout the garden.

Since Brent sent too many pictures, six more will be posted here: https://tonytomeo.com/2019/04/06/six-on-saturday-brents-garden-ii/

1. A small elevated porch-like patio at the rear of the garden was built from debris of the old, and now replaced (obviously) driveway. The old broken concrete was stacked in a few layers. The chunks of the top layer were mortared together with a bit of fresh concrete. This is the view from that patio, back toward the house. The patio and low walls constructed of the same debris can be seen in the next batch of pictures.P90406

2. This is probably the most important picture that Brent sent so far. Those soft orange flowers just to the left and just above the center of the picture are Alstroemeria, or Peruvian lily, from my garden. They are the main reason that Brent’s garden is SO spectacular. Anyway, the low wall was also constructed from the debris from the old driveway. This picture is a closer view just to the left of the previous picture above.P90406+

3. Just to the left of the picture above, and just in front of the picture above that (although outside of the margin of the first picture), this unidentified pink azaleas was blooming happily. Brent probably thought I would be impressed with this one, but duh, I used to grow azaleas, and I still work with more than I can count. I did not grow this one though. There is another picture of a similar specimen in the next batch of pictures.P90406++

4. Again, Brent mistakenly thought I would be impressed with this one. I think he wanted to show off the blooming Chinese wisteria rather than the beams that it is climbing on. It really is spectacular though, and was even more spectacular when it covered more of the arbor. Unfortunately, parts of it mysteriously died, and some was removed to allow more sunlight through. This section is obscured by the big angel’s trumpet in the first picture.P90406+++

5. What a sloppy mess! The bright reddish orange flowers amongst the lush strap shaped leaves in the middle are Kaffir lily, Clivia miniata. There are a few scattered about, that bloom in colors ranging from even redder orange to very pale (almost white) yellow. Yet, the traditional bright reddish orange is still the best. They tolerate quite a bit of shade, which is important in this overgrown jungle. I am impressed, but I do not tell Brent.P90406++++

6. If this ‘Charles Grimaldi’ angel’s trumpet looks familiar, you might have seen it in the Sunset – Western Garden Book. It provided the illustration for its genus of Brugmansia. It is quite large, and grows like a weed. I pruned it years ago, and to my surprise, Brent didn’t totally panic when I cut the entire top off. Just before I pruned it, Brent tore off the big rooted canes that grew into the big copy off to the right in the first picture.P90406+++++

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 18 Comments

Tomato

60406Actually, it is a fruit. It contains seeds. Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, is one of the most popular vegetables in American gardens. Most are red. Some are yellow or orange. A few weird varieties are pink, green, dark purple, brownish or creamy white. The largest tomatoes can get more than four inches wide. Tiny clustered ‘grape’ tomatoes are less than a quarter inch wide. There are literally thousands of varieties!

Most garden varieties are ‘indeterminate’, which means that they are productive throughout the season until frost. ‘Determinate’ agricultural varieties produce all their fruit within a limited season to facilitate harvest. This also works nicely for home canning. (Determinate varieties seem to be more productive only because all the fruit ripens at once.) Although technically perennial, plants are grown as annuals. They get about three to six feet tall. Most garden varieties need support.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Spring Fashions For Vegetable Gardens

60406thumbCompared to replacing cool season annuals with warm season annuals, the replacement of cool season or ‘winter’ vegetables with warm season or ‘summer’ vegetables is not quite as traumatic. Most of the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants finish in time to make room for new vegetable plants anyway. Unlike flowering annuals, they make it obvious that they are done for the season.

If left too late into warming spring weather, the juvenile floral buds of broccoli and cauliflower will bloom, and become tougher and somewhat bitter. Cabbage does the same, but only after bolting first. (‘Bolting’ is the emergence of tall floral stalks from formerly basal foliage.) By the time beet, carrot, turnip and radish bolt, their plump roots are more like fibrous wood than tender vegetables.

Once space is relinquished, tomato, eggplant and pepper plants might be the first vegetable plants to go back into the garden. Even if the weather gets cool for a while, it will not get cool enough for frost. Roots disperse as soon as they get into the ground. Warming weather accelerates growth above ground. Fruit develops through summer. (Fruits contain seed. True vegetables do not.)

Tomato, eggplant and pepper are popularly planted as seedlings because only a few plants of each are needed. Each plant probably costs more than a single package of seed (which contains enough seed to grow many more plants than are necessary), but are still not too expensive collectively. Seedlings get established and start growing more efficiently than germinating seed does.

Various melons and squash, including zucchini, can either be planted as seedlings or sown as seed. Their seeds germinate and grow so efficiently that seedlings probably do not have much advantage. However, their seedlings are relatively fragile to handle, so might be at a disadvantage. Seedlings might be practical for one or two plants; but seed might be best for several plants.

Bean and cucumber grow most efficiently from seed mainly because several or many of each plants are grown, and also because seedlings are somewhat sensitive to transplant. Onion and potato are popularly grown from onion or potato ‘sets’, or ‘seed’ onions or potatoes, which are merely juvenile vegetables that grow into productive plants. Onion can also be grown from seed.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 13 Comments

Horridculture – What’s The Point?

P90403In this situation, the point is that all those pointed tips of the leaves of this awkwardly floppy century plant, Agave americana, are extremely sharp, extremely rigid and EXTREMELY dangerous. Those shorter teeth on the margins of the leaves are just as sharp and rigid, and are curved inward to maximize injury to anyone trying to get away from an initial jab. With tips that impale, and marginal teeth that slash, this is one very hateful perennial!

Another point is that this big and awkwardly obtrusive century plant is on a patio at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, it is in a public place where people get dangerously close to it. On Friday and Saturday nights, this restaurant can get quite crowded. Some within such crowds are inebriated, so are more likely to stumble about and bump into things that are best avoided. Those concrete slabs to the left are benches where people are often seated.

The third point is that the only remedy for this ridiculously bad situation is to remove the century plant. Chopping the leaves like those that were over the bench on the left only removes a few tips and teeth, but does not make the rest of the foliage significantly safer. Nor does folding the leaves inward, like those that are next to those that were chopped. Such abuse only makes the whole mess uglier. Now it is both dangerous AND ugly.

Now, who thought that putting the most dangerous of all perennials available into this public situation was a good idea?! (Cacti with inward curving spines and other plants that are more dangerous are not even available in nurseries.) Century plants are dangerously nasty even when small and young, so even someone who knows nothing about landscape design should have known better than this!

Posted on by tonytomeo

Leopard Plant

90410As an understory species that naturally grows under forest trees in its native environment in Japan, leopard plant, Farfugium japonicum, can be quite happy in parts of the garden that are too shady for other plants. If it does not get too warm or dry, it can tolerate full sun. It likes rich soil and frequent watering. Fertilizer should be applied moderately, since too much can cause foliar burn.

Cultivars of leopard plant that are variegated with yellow or white spots, blotches, margins or outwardly and irregularly flaring streaks are increasingly popular, although the unvariegated rich dark green cultivars are still the most popular. Individual leaves get about three to six inches wide. Some are wavy or impressively crinkly around the edges, or outfitted with a few bluntly angular teeth.

The mostly unseen rubbery petioles can suspend the glossy evergreen foliage as high as two feet, although most cultivars stay lower. Rhizomes spread slowly. It may take many years before the healthiest of specimens gets big enough to divide. Leopard plant is grown as a foliar plant, but provides a delightful surprise of loose trusses of inch wide yellow daisy flowers in autumn or winter.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Way Beyond Last Frost Date

90410thumbScheduling of gardening chores is as important now as it ever was. We plant warm season vegetables and annuals in time for spring and summer. We plant cool season vegetables and annuals for autumn and winter. We pick flowers as they bloom. We harvest fruits and vegetables as they ripen. We watch the seasons change on our calendars, as well as in the locally specific weather.

Yet, the one scheduling tool that we do not hear as much about as we did when agriculture was more common in the region is the ‘last frost date’. It refers to the average date of the last potentially damaging frost for a specific region. The last of such frosts might actually be earlier or later, but the last frost date remains a standardized time to plan particular procedures and planting around.

There are likely a few reasons why we do not talk about the last frost date much. The most relevant reason is likely the timing. Around here, the last frost date is sometime in January. It is earlier in some spots, and later in others, but it is sometime between January 1 and 30. It is simply too early to limit much of what we do in the garden in early spring, and is irrelevant to most winter chores.

It might seem to be just as irrelevant now, since the last frost was so long ago. Seed for warm season vegetables and annuals is sown as the weather gets warmer only because it would grow too slowly while the weather is too cool in winter, not because of a threat of frost. There really is quite a bit of time between the last frost and warm spring weather, while the weather is still rather cool.

However, pruning of plants that were damaged by frost should have been delayed at least until after the last frost date, and perhaps as late as spring. Although unsightly, damaged growth shelters inner growth from subsequent frost. Besides, premature pruning stimulates new growth that is more sensitive to subsequent frost. Most of such pruning is delayed until just after the last frost date.

If delayed longer, fresh new growth will show how far back damaged stems must get pruned.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 25 Comments

The End Of The Cherry Blossom Festival

P90331After decades of spectacular spring bloom, this pair of flowering cherry trees in the picture above must be removed. They have been deteriorating for a very long time. Below the limber blooming branches of the tree on the right, there is not much more than a bulky rotten trunk, one rotting limb, and a short stub of a limb that was cut back to a bit of viable twiggy growth last year. The tree to the left has only a few more viable but rotten limbs.
Through this last winter, it was finally decided that we would allow them to bloom one last time, and then replace them with a new pair of trees of the same cultivar. I will cut them down myself. I do not want anyone else to perform this unpleasant task. Nor do I want such dignified and admired trees to be cut down by anyone else. Like I do for other prominent trees, I will write the obituary; a joint obituary for two who were always together.
Since the new trees will be of the same cultivar, they will bloom with the same profuse pale pink spring bloom, and will hopefully last for more than half a century like the originals did. Because the originals had been pruned back so severely as they deteriorated over the past many years, the new trees should grow to be as large within only a few years. They will not be the same though. There will be no adequate replacement for the originals.
The cherry blossoms below are of another pair of trees a bit farther up the road. They are not nearly as old, so could be there for a few more decades. There are a few others, of various ages and different cultivars, scattered about the neighborhood.P90331+P90331++

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Another Bad Picture

P90330KKThis is why one should not ask someone else who is very vain to take a picture of something important. The vain only take good selfies. Others subjects are too unimportant to them to bother getting a good picture of.

Fortunately, I did not ask for this picture. Brent, my colleague in Southern California, sent it to me with all those other pictures that I shared this morning, and the rest of the pictures that I intend to share next Saturday. I think he wanted to show off his magnolia. I do not remember what cultivar it is, or even what species. I though there was a Magnolia soulangeana in this spot, but these flowers do not look right for that.

I think this picture shows off the plumerias better. Brent probably did not think of that because he does not understand how impressive these specimens are to those of who can not grow them, even while these specimens are bare. I would like to grow some here, but it gets a bit too cool for them in winter. They are very sensitive to even mild frost.

Some of us know plumeria as frangipani. There are quite a few different cultivars that are indistinguishable while bare in this picture. Some stay quite small. My favorite white flowered cultivar is very tall but lanky, with only a few branches. The biggest specimen is the most common, with large trusses of small but very fragrant white flowers with yellow centers. Most bloom with a few colors swirled together. A few are more uniform hues of light pink, bright pink, red, pastel orange and buttery yellow.

I have pruned these specimens a few times. The pruning debris gets plugged as cuttings of various sizes. They grow into copies of the originals that get used in landscapes that Brent designs.

Brent’s other pictures, as well as a brief explanation of the severity of his extreme vanity, can be found at: https://tonytomeo.com/2019/03/30/six-on-saturday-vanity/ and https://tonytomeo.com/2019/03/30/six-on-saturday-vanity-ii/ .

Posted on by tonytomeo · 24 Comments

Six on Saturday: Vanity II

 

As I mentioned in the immediately previous post, this is the sequel to that same previous post, and the second ‘Six on Saturday’ for today. These five bad pictures of good camellias, and the sixth . . . picture, would make sense only after reading the previous post: https://tonytomeo.com/2019/03/30/six-on-saturday-vanity/

These pictures are somewhat better than the previous six, . . . although black vinyl nursery cans and the gravel on the ground below are a bit too prominent in the first four. The flowers are centered better within the pictures, . . . although the first three are not facing the camera.

1. R. L. WheelerP90330K

2. Variegated Guilio NuccioP90330K+

3. Nuccio’s GemP90330K++

4. Valentine’s DayP90330K+++

5. Unidentified camellia in the home gardenP90330K++++

6. ME! As mentioned above, the previous post makes a bit more sense about these pictures.P90330K+++++

Now, in case you do not read the previous post or know who Brent is, I will explain briefly that he is a renowned but extremely vain landscape designer in the Los Angeles region, and has been my colleague since we were college roommates in 1986. I posted my selfie here for comparison with Brent’s selfie in the previous post. Together they demonstrate that, although I am not nearly as proficient with taking good selfies as Brent is, I look much better in my selfies. Ironically, Brent Green, the renowned landscape designer, got his selfie in a nursery; and I am a nurseryman, but got my selfie in a landscape.

There are some more pictures of Brent’s home garden that I will likely share next week. They are much more interesting than the sorts of landscapes that I work in.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Six on Saturday: Vanity

 

These are five of the pictures of camellias from Nuccio’s Nursery in Altadena that I said last week I would share this week. I will share five more immediately afterward in a second ‘Six on Saturday’ post. I am not certain if there is a rule against doing so, but no one seemed to mind when I did the same to share an over abundance of autumn foliar color last autumn. You can find the second post here: https://tonytomeo.com/2019/03/30/six-on-saturday-vanity-ii/

Brent Green, my colleague who I sometimes mention within the context of my articles, typically in a rather unflattering manner, took these pictures nearly two weeks ago. He lives and works nearby, in the Los Angeles region.

Brent takes horrible pictures. He always has. He was wasting my film on bad pictures such as these in 1986. I told him just before he took these pictures that I really wanted GOOD pictures. These are what I got.

Also, Brent is VERY vain. Back in 1986, when we were roommates in Fremont Hall at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, he often had me go get the car to meet him at the bottom of the stairs because he was in that much of a hurry to do whatever he happened to be doing at the time. It might have been getting close to a week since he last got his Grace Jones flat top do done. Perhaps his clothes were getting close to three months old, so he needed a new batch. It was always a rush. The problem was that there was a mirror in our dorm room. I would wait in the red zone at the bottom of the stairs with the engine running for several minutes before going back up to the top floor and most of the way down the long hall to our room to find him staring at himself in that mirror. When I told him that we needed to leave NOW before the car got ticketed, he would still need to add some more Sta-Sof-Fro to his do . . . and stare some more. He had hair back then.

Yes, this is relevant here. Anyway, these are the camellias:

1. Chandleri Elegans or Francine – What do they see off to the right? Why is one cowering behind the other? This picture should have been centered, and wider than tall, or horizontal rather than vertical.P90330

2. Rosette – What is so interesting off to the left that the flower can not look at the camera? Is this supposed to be a picture of the flower low in the picture, or the gravel beyond it?P90330+

3. Red Devil – There are a lot of distracted flowers here. What is this one looking at on the ground? Is the gravel that interesting? Perhaps the vinyl cans are. This one should be centered too.P90330++

4. Demure – This one looks like an album cover from the 1970s; pale, distracted, and off center against an industrial background. It could be a bad picture, or it could be artistic.P90330+++

5. Tata – This one looks like a teenager with bad acne looking down before jumping off the high dive.P90330++++

6. Brent Green – The only good picture of the bunch.P90330+++++

Now . . . how did Brent take such bad pictures of flowers that he could so easily aim the camera at properly, AND take such a perfect selfie without being able to see the picture as he took it? Could it be VANITY?!?

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:

https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/